Before I get started, I just wanted to note something here for this, and all further reviews. I don't give a damn about spreadsheets and that X-weapon is 0.1% better when theorycrafted against a theoretical non-existant situation yada yada yada. This game's about having fun, murdering dudes as ninjas, and having fun again. So all the pretentious innane blabbering about spreadsheet arguments should really go somewhere else. Anyway! Now that that is out of the way...

Yes Tenno, it's that time again, where I spend some of my platinum fortune on day one of content's release so you know how to go about it all. I'm-ksamdalksssshhhhzzzzzz-

.....-BORRRRRRRRING!! YOU DON'T WANT TO LISTEN TO THAT GUY, TENNO!! YOU WANNA HEAR ABOUT LOOT! AND PRIMES! AND EXPLOSIONS!!

I'M BIG EVIL, AND I'M HERE TO ASK YOU ONE QUESTION, AND ONE QUESTION ONLY:

EXPLOSIONS?!

Castanas, The Basics

A thrown secondary weapon, the Castanas has a 'clip' of 2, a 1 second reload time and have a slight-but-accurate arc to their flight path when thrown. They're the closest thing to an actual Grenade you'll find in Warframe likely for some time. So if you've been waiting for grenades, and the Penta being a primary weapon was too much for you, this baby is it.

A silent weapon, including its explosions, the Castanas itself does no damage when it initially strikes. Zero. Not even a tiny DoT or anything. However it also doesn't alert enemies when they're initially hit, and even when the explosion is triggered with the aim-button, nearby enemies who don't actually witness the explosion (by staring right at it when it explodes at short range) won't hear or notice it at all.

Making for an excellent tool for stealth missions, the Castanas can be loaded up onto anything or anyone, sticking to enemies, bosses, doors, and even other Tenno. Load up patrolling enemies and let them walk back to their buddies. Load up your friendly Rhino squad buddy and send him charging ahead to explode FOR THE GLORY OF SAT-snrksszzzzzz

Castanas, The Advanced

Coming with 2 built-in Offensive (V) polarities, the Castanas are ready to rock right out of the gate even without a Potato. At level 13 you're already able to slot a maxed out Barrel Diffusion and Hornet Strike for an intense amount of electro-punishment. At level 30, without a potato, you're able to slot in maxed Magnum Force for over 1200 damage per explosion. Or, slot a Lethal Torrent and a small elemental mod of choice, and you'll throw out 6-7 grenades with just the 2 shots in the 'magazine', quickly obliterating most things. the explosion radius is, obviously, smaller than the Penta or the Ogris, but not entirely unpleasantly so. You'll still kill a fair few enemies with each explosion just not the room-clearing effects of other explosion-based weapons.

However, here's the sticky part... it's all electrical damage. With -50% damage to Alloy types, but +50% to machinery, the Castanas are a focused weapon without any further elemental mods to create either Corrosive, Radiation or Magnetic damage. While I personally would have liked a different damage type, this will certainly do in a pinch.

Much like it's other "Click to Explode" cousins, the Castanas can be exploded in mid-air during their arcs, allowing you to air-burst to your hearts content, however the flight path is quite quick, certainly on par with other thrown weapons. Using it in this fashion took some getting used to, but once you do you can rapidly click away and use it to engage enemies at close range. Speaking as such, the damage you do to yourself seems to be lower than one would expect. While I'm certain in much higher level play, where ever hit counts, you'd want to avoid the self-damage, but in everyday play you can pretty much explode these things at your feet and while you'll notice a tickle, you're not going to kill yourself.

Oh, before I forget, it's status-chance isn't incredibly high, but when you fire off a grouping of 6-7 Castanas in one go, you're bound to trigger a Status proc 2-3 times. So, not necessarily a status effect weapon, but it's not one that forgets about it either. And no, there's no reason, at all, to even THINK about a crit-build on these things. 1.5x damage and a 5% chance is all you get.

Castanas, The Conclusion

The Castanas are a weapon which doesn't NEED a Potato... but you're going to want to put one in. Ohhhhh are you going to want to. With the elemental combinations possible, the tricks you can pull off in combat and in stealth (if, well, they ever REALLY put stealth in), I won't say that this weapon "Deserves" a potato, but oh man, will you want to give it one.

Personally, this is going on a short list of weapons to watch... using this weapon was fun, and in fact I'm going to keep it equipped for awhile I think. I've only really begun to experiment with what's possible. When/if Stealth 2.0 comes, this will be one of THE big weapons to have. But if you're a run-and-gun player who prefers not to slow down or think... and your idea of a mission-run is holding the trigger down on an Ignis with Ammo Mutation and running through... well then this isn't the Secondary for you.

That's all for now! But tune in next time when I once again dip into my massive fortune of platinum the moment content is released, so you don't have to waste your time on the things that suck.

And just remember... Donkey Kong was barrel rolling before you all thought it was cool.

That was actually kind of my aim when doing these... anyone can go read the wiki (though, as of the time of publishing this review, my content beat the wiki to press) or investigate on their own... but we all come online and read things to see interesting stuff, to be entertained.

Such is the theory behind my live-action review show that will eventually come to light after my surgeries... thankfully it helps to have some high caliber million subscriber-base reviewer friends and a channel network to help launch that. :)

Love the review. Just got mine to rank 30 not that long ago and have to agree with everything.

The only other thing of note about the status chance: no matter what element you have on there, it can still proc electricity. Which is pretty cool considering it felt like each enemy that was hit was arcing electricity, hitting other targets that were already arcing electricity themselves. I did an ODD when I only had Lethal Torrent on and they felt pretty effective until wave 20+.

Also not sure what frame you were using to test these, but towards the end of the build I managed to one-shot myself with Zephyr.

One thing to note is that if you want to get an elemental combo (with electricity) and an element on it's own, you need to use convulsion as a sort of placeholder. Otherwise it would default to Viral + electricity

Like despair, kunai, hikou : forbids coptering. Also multi mods reduce the amounts of nades you throw before explosion to 3, sometimes even 2 I think

I know they are in there, simply they come out as 3 twice powerful nades, which i dont like because it doesn't allow you to put 6 nades evenly spread out on a crowd/ ground , while this isn't an issue with penta, because of the wider base radius, and even wider with Firestorm.

I think equipping multi mods isn't necessarily a good idea on this weapon . I'll need to test this out .

really its a difference of DPS vs AOE. put on multishot if you want to deal with heavies and endgame content easier but take them off for clearing rooms. Either way, they are stealth weapons so even with the multishot, you can still clear out a horde of low-level grineer, it would just take a little longer.

Damn, I was hoping this was a new thrown melee. A...sticky bomb-erang. It can still happen! Someday.

I take it these persist until detonated ala the Penta grenades? It triggering the elec proc regardless of its element reminds me of the Acrid/Stinger sentinel weapon. And that's a chance for stunning and some additional AoE...

Ah, here's a good question. When you have both Penta grenades and Castanets Castanas out, when you right-click with one weapon out, which goes boom? Both types, or just what you have as the active weapon? I suddenly realize I've used the Penta a lot and I have no idea how this works.